Resident engagement without the admin burden 

Teams need to know who lives in each property, whether they need support evacuating, when they’re available for flat door checks and what follow-up action is required. And that information needs to stay current and accessible. 

This all sits alongside the wider job of managing fire and building safety. 

For Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH), the question was simple: could resident engagement work effectively across a large portfolio without creating another layer of administration? 

In June, MTVH began a pilot of RiskBase Engage. 

Make it easy for residents 

The first principle is simple: if you want residents to respond, make the process easy. 

With Engage, residents don’t need to download an app or create an account. They receive a simple request by email or post and can answer a small number of straightforward questions in just a few minutes. 

For property managers, the process is similarly simple. Communications are sent using their own branding, while responses, outstanding requests and follow-up actions are recorded directly against the relevant building in RiskBase. 

There’s no separate inbox to manage and no spreadsheet to reconcile afterwards. 

Instead, there’s a clear audit trail showing what was requested, what was completed, when it happened and what still needs attention. 

When the ask is simple, residents respond 

The results from the MTVH pilot are encouraging. Across communications to nearly 6,000 flats: 

• 79.2% of emails were opened 

• 85.1% of those who opened the request completed the questions 

• The median email response arrived in just 3.3 hours 

• 75.1% of responses were received within 24 hours 

• 89.5% of responses came from the first request. 

Given how quickly resident engagement becomes resource-intensive when property managers have to chase responses, these results are particularly encouraging. MTVH is a social housing provider, while early rollouts with private-sector block managers are seeing even stronger response rates. In both cases, the process is automated, reducing the amount of manual chasing required from property teams. 

One process, not a series of separate jobs 

Resident engagement can easily become fragmented. 

One process gathers contact details. Another identifies people who need assistance. Another arranges access for flat entrance door checks. Another records PEEP information. Then further communications are needed when information changes or access is required. 

Engage brings all of those activities together into the same process. 

That means property managers get a live view of what has happened, what remains outstanding and what needs to happen next – without trying to piece things together across multiple systems. 

The MTVH pilot shows that resident engagement at scale doesn’t have to mean more administration. Make it simple for residents, automate the chasing and connect the information to the work already being done, and it becomes part of the building-safety process rather than another process to manage. 

See how Engage can simplify resident engagement across your properties. Book a demo at riskbase.uk  

Archie Donald, RiskBase.